People involved

The people involved in running the Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand - profiles our of our patron and national executive.

You can get involved in the day-to-day running of the Republican Movement - join us for just $10 a year and see the get involved pages for how you can help.

Patron

Keri Hulme knows Aotearoa New Zealand will become a republic, but wants it to happen sooner, rather than later. She is a writer and fisher, born in 1947 of Ngai Tahu descent.

Although Keri "doesn't go in for fishing competitions", her writing has won many national and international awards - most notably the 1985 Booker Prize for her novel The Bone People.

Chair

Lewis (LJ) Holden has been involved with the Republican Movement since early 2004 and became the renamed Chair at the end of 2006.

Lewis believes New Zealand should become a republic because our status as a monarchy denies New Zealand's nationhood. He believes that a New Zealand head of state should be a proper check and balance on the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 

Lewis lives in Auckland and works in the IT industry.

National executive

Savage (Vice-chair) is an Auckland screenwriter. He was a founding member of the Republican Coalition in 1994 and served as the first president. He has been an active member on the national executive for the last seven years and is currently the editor of the Republic newsletter. Savage was previously involved in the Electoral Reform Coalition during the MMP campaign in 1993 and the Auckland City Council STV campaign 2002 - 2003. He runs his own film production company, Open Fire Films Limited, as well as a house renovation company West Coast Painting. He is also the Director of The Drug Rights Project and works locally as an organiser for Karekare Landcare, a West Auckland conservation group.

David Farrar owns and manages a small polling and market research company, Curia Market Research. Prior to that he spent eight years in Parliament working for National Party Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders from Bolger to Brash.

He believes in republicanism because he thinks New Zealand ought to have a head of State of its own, and that it is wrong that the Prime Minister can remove the Governor-General from office. 

David runs the popular centre-right politics blog kiwiblog.co.nz.

Jordan Carter has been involved in Labour politics for ten years, and works full time for an Internet NGO doing policy and lobbying work.

Born in Canada and raised in South Auckland, he has never quite understood why the countries he calls home have an English aristocrat as its head of State. He believes the monarchy's time has passed, and that New Zealand needs to decide a model for an indigenous republic, and adopt it.

Dean Knight (Constitutional adviser) is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and an Associate Director of the New Zealand Centre for Public Law. Dean's teaching and research is in constitutional and administrative law, local government and the Rule of Law. As well as being a regular commentator on Radio New Zealand National on public law issues, Dean has a blog on contemporary legal issues: LAWS179: Elephants and the Law. 

Mike Wilkinson (Secretary) is an economist and a passionate New Zealander who became involved with republicanism in 2011 when he realised its importance as the next key step for the political development of the country.  As well as thinking New Zealanders should step forth with their independence from Britain, Mike believes it is time for informed debate about how we control our government in its decisions.

Mike lives in Wellington and currently works on economic issues for retail payment systems.

Kieran McAnulty (Treasurer) is a proud Wairarapa Bush supporter and a Sports Bookie for the TAB. Like many New Zealanders, his views on his home country were greatly influenced by the time he spent away from it. While playing rugby in Ireland, Kieran always struggled to explain how New Zealanders were certainly not British, despite having the British flag comprising part of their own and having the Queen of England as their Head of State.

His republican views are strongly influenced by his family's Irish heritage and his belief in the fundamental right of New Zealanders to determine whom holds positions of influence in this country, regardless of how symbolic that position may be. Kieran is currently Deputy Chair of the Rural Affairs Sector Council of the Labour Party and represents that group on Labour’s Economic Policy Council. He holds a BA and PGDipArts in Politics, having recently submitted his Masters thesis, which discussed the role of Political Positioning, Communication and Strategy under MMP.

Reon Hogg (Membership officer) is a Tauranga based inventor, who lives with his wife and two girls. He has been passionately engaged in politics since returning to New Zealand in 2007, after living overseas and observing the world degenerating. He is working towards achieving a degree in politics, and feels very strongly about using his life to make a difference to New Zealand.

Reon strongly agrees with republicanism, and would like to see New Zealand citizens empowered to make a difference to their country. He is passionate about ensuring social justice, not only for New Zealander’s but worldwide. Eliminating child poverty and ensuring civil rights of citizens are maintained are some of Reon’s political ideals. Reon wants to ensure that the world his children grow up in is fair and just for all people, His favourite political model is that of Switzerland.